When Shefali Shah starts speaking, there are no theatrics, no build-up, just a direct presence that immediately reminds you why DCP Vartika Chaturvedi has become one of the most compelling characters on Indian streaming. When we sit down to talk about Delhi Crime Season 3, currently streaming on Netflix, Shefali doesn't circle around themes or soften the edges. She gets straight to the point: crime is evolving, the show is evolving with it, and so is Vartika.

“Sadly, crime continues to happen - and like you rightly said, its face keeps changing,” she says in a Zoom call early on. That line sets the tone: Season 3 doesn't reheat old fears. The show, she says, is more than melodrama:“Delhi Crime reflects what's happening in society and also forces us to reflect within ourselves - are we aware, are we willing to look at it, and what are we ready to do about it?”

What follows is a lucid, unflinching breakdown of how trafficking now operates in multiple, often invisible, phases.“Most people think trafficking means taking kids and forcing them into prostitution, but there are multiple layers to it,” she explains. Girls are“lured with the promise of jobs,” married off to older men to bear children, forced into prostitution, or even used to beg.

Vartika, for Shah, is no poster-cop. She's a character forged across seasons, and Shefali is careful to trace that arc truthfully.“Vartika has gone through a lot of change,” she says.“In Season 2 she gets a 'promotion' that's actually a punishment. She was almost banished - sent away from her family, her team, her city. When she gets a case in Season 3 and realises it's heading towards Delhi, she wants to come back and solve it.”

That push and pull is crucial because Season 3 widens the lens.“This season is much wider in terms of demographics - it spans the entire nation. But I think Vartika has grown inward,” Shefali says. "Vartika still feels everything intensely, but she chooses to put emotion aside because she believes she doesn't have the luxury of indulging in pain or anger. She channels it instead.”

And Vartika knows when to pull threads, whom to push, and how to use every lever without“ruffling feathers” so she doesn't lose the opportunity to get justice.“She may appear more stoic, but it's not because she doesn't feel - it's because she uses that emotion as inner strength. Overall, she thrives on this. She lives for this.” For Vartika, the point is the work.

We talk about the toll of inhabiting such darkness.“Of course,” she says when we ask about fatigue.“You're dealing with scenes, incidents, or criminal situations that are very real and prevalent. We read about these cases, we get affected, and then eventually we move on. But when I'm working on Delhi Crime, I'm faced with them every day.” Shefali describes gut-wrenching scenes and the discipline of performance -“when I'm performing, I give the moment everything I feel - complete intensity. After it's done, I don't take it home.” She is careful, here, to mark a line between the role and the woman:“What she goes through, I hope I never have to. I can't carry that home. I wouldn't be able to function.”

That boundary between actor and character becomes a theme. Shefali admits that there are similarities: both she and Vartika are“extremely emotional” and“obsessive” about a task.“We both believe we're only as good as our team,” she says. But there are differences she admires in Vartika and would like to adopt; notably, how the character“knows exactly which threads to pull, how much leeway she can take, and how to very sweetly push boundaries to get things done quickly.”

One of the season's most notable shifts is the antagonist: Huma Qureshi plays the key adversary. Shefali welcomes this as a break from stereotype.“Earlier, the stereotype was always: hero is a man, villain is a man. I'm glad we're breaking that,” she says. She points to the ensemble -“phenomenal” and overwhelmingly female - and calls the dynamic a kind of“silent act of sisterhood,” even when many of those women occupy opposite sides of the line.

We slide into the zeitgeist: the appetite for true crime. Shefali owns her taste honestly.“I'm a true-crime fan myself. Not of the crime, but of the shows,” she admits. She believes part of the allure is that viewers want to see justice -“it's a small solace that the villain was caught.” Yet she resists simple explanations for the fascination, and is amused by the more sensational takes:“I read somewhere that people who watch these shows are psychopaths (laughs), but I'd like to believe I'm not.”

On method and recovery, she is characteristically frank. When a project consumes her,“I'm obsessed. I eat, breathe, live the show. After shoot, I come home, shower, eat, talk to my family - and then go right back into the script.” But she draws a firm line on permanence.“Once a project is finished, I don't carry it with me 24/7. Vartika will always be personal to me, but I can't live in that darkness constantly. I wouldn't be able to function.”

We end, naturally, on what the show chooses and why. Shefali reveals the season's origin: when Tanuj (Chopra) presented her with two cases to choose between, she picked the Baby Falak case -“and that's what the season is based on. It begins with this baby and then expands into a trafficking nexus.”

As the conversation winds down, Shefali shifts gears when we ask her about the lighter moments in her career. She tells us she recently finished shooting a film she can't reveal much about yet.“It's one of the most flipped-out characters I have ever played,” she says, laughing.“She is just so tedha (twisted). I don't know how to even describe her. It's a dark comedy, it's a thriller, and I had a lot of fun.”

While Vartika may have become an inseparable part of her, Shefali Shah isn't confined to one shade of storytelling. She can dive into the darkest corners of human behaviour, walk out of it without carrying the weight home, and then effortlessly switch into something wickedly funny.

But when it comes to Delhi Crime, the connection runs deeper. She says,“There's a marriage of two people; so there's really no taking Shefali out of Vartika or vice versa.”

It's clear she wants to remain "Madam Sir."

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